Faithless Prayers
by bookworm1945
Summary: A short on our dearest bby Yuca. "Yuca looks forward to going insane."


**I got a creative writing assignment in my comp. and rhetoric class. You know what that means? FANFICTION.**

Faithless Prayers

Yuca looked forward to the day he would go insane.

Ponderously, a bee floated past Yuca's face, hovering lazily for a moment before alighting softly on his knee. Yuca watched the insect absently for a time, the way it crept slowly over his pants, wandering aimlessly over the black landscape. Eventually, a brisk flick of the hand sent the bee on towards its next conquest, allowing Yuca to relax under the welcome shade of the ancient oak.

Summer had brought a pleasant heat to the days, and time passed lethargically at the abbey. Shouts of delight drifted from the humble structure, reaching out across a lush field to mingle with the sounds of restless insects and shuddering leaves. Yuca treasured silence, but not so much so that the voices of playful orphans became burdensome. Birdsong occasionally pierced the faint murmur of noise, but with the heat came a certain heaviness to the air, a weight that seemed to frown upon activity.

"Hey, Yuca, what's this word again?" The easy quiet departed swiftly before Rain's voice. Yuca sighed as he crawled around the wide oak to where Rain was seated, careful not to dirty his priests' clothing as he settled himself beside his friend. Rain brushed flaxen curls out of his face, features tense with concentration. An unusual expression, for him. The towering youth was nothing if not affable, an easy smile constantly lurking around the corners of his mouth, constantly waiting to produce some quip and spark laughter.

Yuca had been mildly surprised to discover Rain couldn't read, seeing as Mother taught all the orphans in the abbey to read and write, but Rain's parents had been foreigners, brought to this country only through the war. Suddenly, Rain's outlandish height and golden curls made sense, as he was in fact outlandish. The youth's formidable height seemed diminished, now; his broad shoulders stooped uncharacteristically over the book in his hands. Yuca craned his neck to examine the text, and saw where the Rain's guiding finger had stopped.

"_Righteousness_," Yuca told him. "Remember, the T-E-O-U-S makes a _ches_ sound." He pointed to each letter in turn, pausing only when he saw the pained look on Rain's face.

"It's strange," Yuca offered pityingly. "Try reading the whole passage out loud. It gets easier with practice."

Rain took a steadying breath. "Right," he muttered, eyes fixed on the text, focus permeating his posture.

Yuca returned to his place against the cool trunk, closing his eyes to shut out the muted sunlight as Rain began to read. Shade and light speckled the grassy field irregularly, reflecting the cloud patterns in the sky above. Softly at first, as if uncertain, a breeze encompassed the old oak, giving Rain's recitation an accompaniment of rustling leaves as the branches overhead swayed slightly. Tendrils of his own raven hair ghosted across Yuca's face, faintly tickling his skin. As Rain read, his voice faltered and he occasionally had to sound a word by its syllables, but Yuca nevertheless began to doze.

"_In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness..."_

Unbidden, memories drifted through Yuca's half-conscious mind. A girl with dirt on her dress, calling him brother and taunting that he couldn't catch her. A man with an axe, teaching him to fell a tree, that it must fall in _this_ direction. A different man, berating him for misplacing such important ledgers. A gentle-looking woman, telling him that he must buy lilies for Marie, otherwise she would not even consider him.

_ "For the enemy has pursued my soul, he has crushed my life to the ground..."_

Men in leather and metal armor, clashing in a horrendous array of blood and shouts. Women in fine dresses laughing in a garden. Street rats beating him because they were bigger than him and because they _could_. Men in uniforms hiding behind a barrier, shooting muskets at whoever dared come close. A boy dead at his feet. A woman beside him in bed. A shouting man. Friends, comrades, lovers, enemies, neighbors, family. Faces and deeds and names flickered in and out of his mind in an overwhelming assault of information. Memories like water encompassed him, threatening to drown him, the weight of his unconsciousness dragging him deeper into the murk, preventing his escape.

Yuca awoke gasping for air, his panicked mind scrambling to make sense of his surroundings, to remember when he was. A voice could be heard, saying_, "... Answer me quickly, O Lord! My spirit fails! Hide not your face from me..."_

A shuddering breath escaped Yuca's lips, and a measure of panic left him. Blinking tears from his eyes, Yuca leaned back against the aged tree he and Rain had chosen. A single memory surfaced, an image of a burly smithy who had often doubled as a drinking partner. The two had met occasionally in the local tavern to swap stories and quaff watered-down ale, enjoying each other's idle chat and companionship. One night the conversation had gotten onto the forge apprentices, how their youth made up for the blacksmith's waning strength. "I'll tell you," the man had confided, "Sometimes I think there's nothing I wouldn't give to be young and strong forever."

Yuca had laughed so hard that tears were streaming down his face by the time they sent him home for being straight-up drunk. Luckily, he didn't have a family that time, so nobody stopped him from eating a dozen belladonna berries and moving on. People never ceased to amaze him, how they openly longed for eternal hell. They would actually _envy_ him, jumping at the chance to die and be reborn with memories still intact, to live a thousand lives and be young always. The fools simply didn't know.

_ "... O Lord, preserve my life!..."_

Yuca couldn't wait to go mad. It had to happen eventually. The memories, the loss, all of it would inevitably drive him insane. One day he would be born, and his mind would simply _stop_.

Yuca didn't believe in God, but he still prayed every night for insanity.


End file.
